Wallet-size cards are widely used as identification cards, membership cards, insurance cards, index cards, licenses, tags and the like. Therefore, it is desirable to prepare and distribute such cards in mass quantities. However, because of their small size they cannot be processed in standard laser, lithographic or other high-speed printers, mail processing equipment and other equipment designed to handle high volumes of paper.
One technique for dealing with this problem involves simply adhering or attaching cards to standard size paper which can then be fed into printers. FIG. 5 shows a prior art card-carrying sheet for use in a conventional impact printer having tractor drive wheels which engage perforated strips on the sides of the paper (not shown) to provide the necessary indexing and control for feeding the paper. Card 50 is adhered to carrier sheet 51 by adhesive tape 52 which forms a ridge of increased thickness. However, this ridge can cause the sheet to jam in modern high-volume paper processing equipment. For example, many modern high speed printers detect the height of a stack of papers in a holding bin and if one portion of the stack is 1/4" higher than another portion, the papers will not feed into the printer. Thus, a large stack of the above card-carrying sheets will not feed into such printers since the increased thickness caused by the adhesive tape is amplified through the stack. In addition, some laser printers are finicky and unable to handle varying thicknesses of paper on the same sheet. Thus, the ridge created by the adhesive tape can cause the imaging mechanisms to fall out of alignment, resulting in misaligned and poor quality imaging. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a card-carrying sheet having a removable card incorporated therein and having a substantially uniform thickness.
One attempt at providing such a product involves laminating plastic over a portion of a first sheet of paper, adhering a second sheet of paper over most or all of the first sheet of paper which is not covered by plastic and die-cutting a perforated card from the laminated portion. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,096,229 to Carlson. Perforations in the plastic can cause a jagged edge on the resulting card which can puncture skin. In many applications, a plastic laminated paper card is not sufficiently resistant to delamination. The entire sheet prepared according to the above patent is laminated with either plastic or paper which increases cost.
Another attempt involves recessing an area of a sheet of paper, laminating a plastic film over the recessed area and die-cutting a perforated card from the laminated portion. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,131,686 to Carlson. This technique eliminates the need for adhering another sheet over the nonlaminated portion to achieve a substantially flat sheet. However, a similar plastic laminated paper card can be produced having a jagged edge and not being sufficiently resistant to delamination. In addition, when processed through the feeding mechanisms in a laser printer, the perforations may be too weak to hold the card in place. Accordingly, it is desirable that a card-carrying sheet having a substantially uniform thickness incorporates a high quality plastic card therein which will not separate from the sheet during processing but can be easily pealed away by human fingers.